The first time I tried kombucha, I hated it. I cringed at the vinegar-ey smell and could not understand why my friend, Lily, was so obsessed with this weird drink when she could be drinking water, soda, or beer. You know, like a normal human.

Fast forward a decade, and now I drink kombucha every day. Usually I take a shot of my own home brewed “booch” first thing in the morning. If I have an upset stomach, a headache, or I feel a cold coming on, then I’ll drink an extra shot or two that day. When I’m not at home in my normal routine, you can find me frantically seeking out the nearest health foods store or hipster bodega in search of my fizzy fix.

I think my body might actually be dependent on the stuff at this point. The last three times I’ve gotten a cold have directly followed periods where I neglected my daily dose. On a recent trip to Costa Rica, I experienced food poisoning-like symptoms that nobody else suffered from, and I am convinced that it’s because my stomach was ill-equipped to digest new foods without the aid of kombucha’s gut-healthy probiotics.

So how did I go from hating this funky, fizzy drink to swearing by it?

When I first tried kombucha I was decidedly not eating healthy (I lived on a pizza and pot diet like most college students). As time went on I learned about the problems caused by the conventional food system, prompting me to make some lifestyle changes. I transitioned to a vegetarian diet and started eating more fresh produce (click here to read what I eat in a day now), which not only made me feel great about my carbon footprint but also made my especially sensitive stomach a lot happier.

So, when my nerd of a boyfriend won a DIY kombucha kit at an all-weekend hackathon we decided we should give it a shot. Our first home brewed booch was an amateur affair - we accidentally forgot about it for three months and ended up with a HUGE scoby - but it was enough to get us hooked.

Ever since that first home brewed batch, Jeremia and I have been avid kombucha drinkers and we’ve spread the probiotic gospel to pretty much anyone who would listen. Our DIY kombucha game has been positively on point at times, yet there have also been batches when the NYC fruit flies got the better of our brew. We’ve tried as many different store bought bottles of kombucha as we’ve been able to get our hands on, and we’ve even overdosed when we discovered that 61 Local in Brooklyn has it on tap.

Kombucha is expensive to buy and can be pretty hard to find in some places. Luckily, making your own kombucha at home is a fairly easy and affordable affair. I know the recipe looks long and arduous at first glance, but I promise that once you get started, it is incredibly simple. So, without further adieu, let’s get you brewin’!

How to make your own gut-friendly kombucha at home

Step 1: Acquire a SCOBY

A symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast (SCOBY) is the key ingredient for brewing kombucha. This slimy, mushroom-esque disc is what turns sweet tea into the bubbly, probiotic beverage we all know and love. There are a number of ways to acquire your starter SCOBY:

Get it from a friend (just ask your hippie or health freak friends, I bet they have one)

There are plenty of options for the type of vessel you can use to brew booch at home. Think about how much kombucha you want to end up with; will it be consumed by you and only you or will you be sharing large portions with friends & family? You can always start small and transition to a larger container at a later date, so I suggest a 64 oz mason jar for beginners.

A mason jar (as opposed to a ceramic vessel) makes it easy to keep an eye on your SCOBY. I have a 1 gallon glass jar with a spigot that I love because it’s clear, it’s a great size for my consumption, and that nifty spigot makes the whole process a lot easier (you’ll see).

Step 3: Brew tea

Your SCOBY is like a pet, and caffeine and sugar are the food it needs to thrive. Pretty much any caffeinated tea will work for this - I’ve had great results with earl grey, jasmine green tea, black tea chai, green tea chai, and red rooibos. I usually just reach for whatever I happen to have on hand, so don’t feel like you need to buy special teas just to feed your SCOBY baby. Do take note of which flavors you like best, though, so you can experiment and improve upon future batches!

The amount of tea and sugar you need will depend on the size of your brewing vessel. In my 1 gallon vessel I use 5 tea bags (or 2 large strainers full of loose leaf) and ½ cup of raw sugar. The measurements are not an exact science, so I say experiment with the concentration of both tea and sugar in your first few batches and take notes of what works best.

Step 4: Add the SCOBY

Once your tea is cool to the touch (if it’s too hot it can kill the bacteria in your SCOBY) it’s time to add the SCOBY. If you got a SCOBY from your hippie friends or bought it online, go ahead and toss that baby in. If you are working from a store bought bottle of booch, drink most of it first and then throw the last ¼ cup or so into your freshly brewed tea. You’ll notice that the dregs of the bottle are a bit murky and might even have a slimy SCOBY bit hanging out in there - that’s good ;)

Step 5: Cover with double cotton muslin or a tea towel

Your SCOBY needs to breathe as well as eat, so it needs a lid that will allow air flow. Most DIY kombucha kits will tell you to use cotton gauze or cheesecloth - DON’T LISTEN TO THEM! Those materials have much too big of holes and will not keep the aforementioned fruit flies/gnats out of your precious brew. I use a scrap of cotton muslin (a tea towel will work, too) folded in half so it is double layered, and I use THREE rubber bands to keep it secured to the top of my brewing vessel. I’ve been burned by those dang gnats one too many times, y’all….

Step 6: Wait

The standard amount of time needed for this first fermentation is 10 - 14 days, but that will fluctuate depending on the temperature of your space, the amount of caffeine/sugar in your tea, and the strength of your SCOBY. Generally, warmer temps will encourage fermentation, making your booch brew faster. It is also typical for a first-time SCOBY to take a few extra days as it is still getting used to its new environment and needs to build its strength.

I like to keep my brew on a visible shelf in my kitchen, so I can check on my SCOBY daily, just like a plant. You don’t have to be quite as strange as me, though - just make sure you start monitoring your brew after about 7 days. By then your SCOBY should have expanded to touch every wall of your brewing vessel, forming a layer on top of the liquid. I find that I like my kombucha best when it’s SCOBY is about ½ inch thick (this is why I like brewing in a clear vessel), but you can also do a taste test each day to figure out what stage is most yummy to you (and this is where a spigot comes in handy).

Step 7: Bottling (or as I like to call it, “the harvest”)

Now that your SCOBY is looking healthy and the booch beneath is tasting funkified, it’s time to add some bubbles. During the first phase of fermentation (in your brewing vessel), your SCOBY has been snacking on caffeine and sugar, converting them into bacteria, yeast, and cool flavors. During the second stage of fermentation (in the bottle) we will add a little more food but take away the oxygen, creating carbonation as the bacteria basically burp and fart a lot (here’s more info on how fermentation works if you’re curious).

For the second stage of fermentation you will need pop-top bottles, a funnel, and juice. Using a funnel, pour the kombucha from your brewing vessel (that handy dandy spigot is great here, too) into the pop-top bottles, filling them up until where the bottle starts to curve inwards. You should have about ¼ - ½ cup of space left at the top for your juice. You can leave more room if you prefer a sweeter brew, and less if you like it on the sour side.

You can fill the rest of the bottle with pretty much any kind of juice, but I’ve had my best results with concentrates (you know those dusty glass bottles at the grocery store that you always wonder WTF they’re for? Turns out they’re great for kombucha!). Make sure you leave about a half inch of air at the top of each bottle. My favorite flavorings to date are mango and cherry. You can also sub sweetened tea for juice here if you don’t want to alter the flavor of your kombucha. Try whatever is available to you and take notes on how things turn out so you can replicate or avoid certain results in future batches!

Step 8: Wait again

Now that you have your booch in bottles, you just have to stick them in a dark(ish), cool(ish) location and wait. You can drink your finished kombucha after about 10 days in the bottle.

Since the kombucha doesn’t really change much after 10 days of the second fermentation, you can store it in the same dark(ish), cool(ish) location for some time. I am not sure how long is too long, but I’ve opened bottles anywhere up to 2 months of storage to great results. There are cautionary tales out there involving exploding bottles of kombucha, so I try not to let them sit for too long. I label each bottle with the flavoring and the date that it was bottled and line them up on my shelf with the oldest bottles in the front, so I will always be grabbing the oldest batch first.

Step 9: Refrigerate before opening (and after)

This fizzy probiotic drink is best enjoyed cold, so do refrigerate your bottle when you’re ready to drink it. Another reason for doing this is to prevent explosions - carbonated beverages are more wont to expand when warm, so you could very well end up with kombucha foam flying all over your hands/counter/floor/face/ceiling when you first open a warm or shaken bottle. Refrigeration and careful opening should help you avoid a big mess, though.

Step 10: ENJOY!

Congratulations on your first home brewed batch of kombucha! Crack open a cold bottle and enjoy ;)

This article was written by Lily Rothrock. Lily specializes in marketing strategy and web design, helping her clients tell authentic stories that connect with their intended audience. When she’s not online, you can find her enjoying the beauty of Northern California, organizing community events in Chico, CA, and drinking tea with her cat.

I grew up with Neosporin, Benadryl, and Tylenol. I didn’t discover herbal medicine until I was in an urban gardening program in college, when I was introduced to the medicinal properties of weeds. The more I explored the world of plant medicine, the more I started to question the world of pharmaceuticals.

Don’t get me wrong, modern medicine has brought us wonderful things (such as hand washing and life-saving surgery), however, if you’re concerned about eating a clean diet, wearing sustainable clothes, and using natural products in your beauty routine, then you might also want to take a second look at your medicine cabinet.

Similar to the food and fashion industries, there are ethical and environmental implications to buying pharmaceuticals from big corporations. Many utilize exploitative marketing and pricing techniques, and the supply chain behind medicine is complex. As with food and fashion, one of the best ways to ensure you are supporting an ethical and sustainable business is to simply look for the little guys, the local businesses, and the natural, DIY remedies available to you.

1. Lavender Essential Oil

Why I love it:

Lavender is a powerful plant ally for calming, soothing, and restoring. It’s versatile — I use it every day for some reason or another.

How I use it:

A little bit of lavender essential oil dabbed on the temples or inner wrists can offer relief from a migraine, calm anxiety, and soothe insomnia. I also love its smell - lavender makes a great addition to a homemade cleaning product or as a quick-fix replacement for deodorant. Lavender also has anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory properties, so it is a great medicine for minor burns (Shea Brand’s lavender blend works wonders on a sunburn - use code SUSTAININGSHEA for 10% off), bug bites, cuts, and scrapes. I also use it to invite a meditative state in my daily wellness rituals by dabbing a bit on my third eye and crown, especially right before bed.

Use this instead of:

Neosporin, Benadryl, sleeping aids, and deodorant.

Where to get it:

My favorite lavender essential oil comes from Lavender Feels Forever, a small, woman-owned company in California, where they make everything by hand in small batches.

2. Fire Cider

Why I love it:

Fire Cider is vinegar that’s been infused with powerful plants like herbs, onion, garlic, cayenne pepper, ginger, and horseradish. It’s my secret weapon to defeat a cold before it takes hold of my life.

How I use it:

I drink a small shot of Fire Cider whenever I feel like I might be getting sick (if I have the chills, a scratchy throat, or a runny nose). Think of this powerful tonic like a warm fireplace in a bottle that will give your body what it needs to fight off a cold.

Use this instead of:

Emergen-C, NyQuil, DayQuil.

Where to get it:

Fire cider is one of the easiest remedies to make at home since all of the ingredients are readily available at most grocery stores. This easy recipe by Free Fire Cider is a great how-to, and for those who learn more visually, you can check out this demo on YouTube.

For more recipe inspiration, check out these two recent posts from some of my favorite herbalists @wildearthbrews and @westcountyherb in Northern California.

What to look out for:

There’s a boycott on this popular brand because they trademarked the term “Fire Cider” and have made it nearly impossible for anyone else to sell this traditional herbal medicine under its actual name. Which, amusingly, has prompted many creative names from small herbalists trying to avoid a lawsuit, including my favorite, The Cider That Must Not Be Named.

3. Elderberry Syrup

Why I love it:

Elderberry syrup is not only a powerful long-term boost to your immune system, it’s also super yummy!Elderberries are the powerhouse behind this remedy, packed with Vitamin C, antioxidants, as well anti-viral compounds that help you fight off infection, so you’re less likely to ever catch a cold.

How I use it:

I take this as a daily supplement in cold and flu season. It helps strengthen the body’s long-term immunity, so taking it regularly means you are less likely to catch something should you be exposed. The overall immune support also means that elderberry syrup can help fight off an existing sickness more quickly. It also makes a delicious topping for pancakes!

4. Kratom Leaf Powder

Why I love it:

This leaf is a natural pain-killer that doesn’t mess around – it has been known to be used for everything from chronic pain to headaches to menstrual cramps. The potency of this plant medicine is so strong that it can be a game changer for patients with cancer or chronic illnesses who experience a lot of pain. Strangely enough, the plant’s potency has also caused it to become popular with teenagers looking to get high.

“It is known to be widely used as a recreational drug and it has been the object of legal scrutiny. Its clinical value has yet to be appreciated...It has been used for thousands of years by natives of southeastern Asian islands for various health purposes, among them pain relief.”

How I use it:

Remember that this plant is really potent; so always start small and work your way up. I usually start with 1 teaspoon mixed into a cup of water or juice (since it has a strong, bitter taste) and never mix with substances like alcohol or pharmaceuticals. This is my go-to remedy when I’m experiencing bad cramps.

Use this instead of:

Advil, Tylenol, Midol…any painkillers, really.

Where to get it:

Unfortunately, buying kratom can feel a little bit shady, as it hasn’t quite hit the mainstream. It can be found at headshops (alongside things like salvia and spice) but I wouldn’t recommend you get it there unless you know and trust the brand name. This trusted online retailer offers a fair price and more education around the plant.

Image via Unsplash.

5. Digestion Tea

Why I love it:

Digestion teas help with bloating, gas, and constipation. They stimulate the production of enzymes in your body that are needed to process a meal. Digestion teas usually contain bitter herbs like chamomile, milk thistle, peppermint, and dandelion root and are supplemented with other digestion-friendly ingredients. Digestion tea is more potent when taken unsweetened, as the bitter flavor actually contributes to the stimulation of your body’s digestive tract.

How I use it:

I indulge in this aromatic ritual after dinner and before bed, to help wind down from the day. I also drink digestion teas whenever I’ve eaten a particularly heavy meal or an ingredient that I know my body doesn’t digest well in the first place (cheese, anyone?).

Mint, ginger, and fennel are very common digestion-supporting herbs that you can easily infuse in hot water to make your own brew at home.

Use this instead of:

Tums, antacids, Gas-X.

Where to get it:

My favorite blend of digestion tea is this organic loose-leaf Happy Tummy Tea by Mountain Rose Herbs (actually, I love all of their organic, high quality, and fresh herbal products!) that is filled with spearmint, lemongrass, calendula, rosemary, and fennel. If I’m out of the Mountain Rose blend, I usually brew my own digestive tea with ginger, mint, fennel, and lemongrass.

These days it seems like everyone has a friend who absolutely swears by yoga, and I can't deny the number of accounts on my Instagram feed which appear to be owned by full-time yogis who are inhumanly strong, flexible, and at peace with themselves. But yoga is not an activity reserved for the uber-athletic or even the uber-zen. Yoga is for everyone!

As someone who would hesitate to call herself a yogi - or even particularly flexible - I can say with firm confidence that yoga has the potential to better your life. Without at least one weekly Vinyasa Flow, I tend to fall into a pit of anxiety, despair, and a poor relationship with my body. When I do my weekly yoga, the daily challenges of life seem a lot less daunting and depressing. This type of attitude adjustment, not to mention a good sweat session, should be good for anyone. If you are doubtful of the physical and mental benefits of yoga, here are three good reasons to give it a try.

1. You Can Do This

It is so easy to trick yourself into not trying something difficult, or not going for something new. Yoga teaches that a can't-do vs a can-do attitude is all in your head; there is an internal voice that either gets in your way or pushes you to break outside of the comfort zone.

In a good yoga class, you will push yourself to physical and mental limits by holding chair pose or doing one more yogi push-up. A good yoga instructor will remind you to breathe through the pain and to enjoy it, that if you actively tell yourself you can do this, your muscles will obey. Then, when you've powered through that third chair pose with a smile on your face and powerful breath coursing through your lungs, you can rest knowing that you did it.

The realization that comes from telling yourself that you can, and finding yourself obeying that positive voice, is powerful. When we carry that knowledge throughout our daily lives and tell ourselves, yes, we can talk to that person or we can accomplish that goal, we are empowering ourselves to be bigger, better, more confident human beings.

2. But It's OK If You Can't

On the flip side of you can do this, yoga teaches you to be kind to yourself when necessary. We all have our limits and some days what we need is some kind forgiveness, rather than an extra push.

When your yoga instructor reminds you at the beginning of class that child's pose is always available, you would do well to take that suggestion to heart. On tough or tired days, you may not feel comfortable with pushing your hips to take on that extra power lunge, or pushing your brain to write that important essay - and that is OK. On those days, you should not beat yourself up for taking a child's pose while the rest of the class is pushing that lunge, you should not lie awake chastising yourself for not getting the work done. Instead, forgiving yourself for taking a break and allowing yourself to fully breathe and restore your strength during that break is incredibly important.

Being kind to ourselves during particularly tough moments is a healthy practice that goes beyond yoga. Allowing for rest and relaxation can strengthen our stores of energy and power for the next day, the next challenge; and it is imperative that we do not beat ourselves up about taking these breaks. Taking a child's pose and giving ourselves permission to restore is an important type of work, in and of itself.

3. Just Breathe/Show Up

Knowing that you are powerful while being capable of forgiving yourself makes for a well-rounded and healthy outlook on life. You will feel confident and strong enough to push yourself while being kind enough to be OK with taking a much needed rest. For all of those moments, as well as the ones in between, yoga teaches you to just keep breathing.

The most impactful words that I've learned in yoga have been "show up." By showing up on your yoga mat, showing up for a day that you've been dreading, or showing up to emotionally care for yourself or your loved ones, you are enough. Good yoga instructors will remind you that it's not about how perfect you look in a pose, but about how you show up in that shape, being mindful of your body, it's power and it's limitations. When faced with a challenge, whether a particularly difficult pose or a tough decision in life, it is enough that you show up and give it your best shot. Giving up, shrinking away in fear or expecting to much and then beating yourself up for not meeting your own expectations - these are poor ways of meeting life's challenges. Instead, yoga teaches you to breathe through the pain and the hardship and to stand strong, to be there for yourself.

Breathing deliberately and showing up are two aspects of the same thing. In order to show up and be there, we use our breath to focus and sustain our physical emotional energies. Rather than giving up or expecting too much, yoga teaches us to be there, to keep breathing and to own what we can do while accepting what we cannot.

Do you yoga? What have you learned and how has yoga improved your life?